


The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: M/M, POV Obi-Wan Kenobi, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:49:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24654862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Obi-Wan closes his eyes during the Clone War and opens them in a cell as a prisoner to a Sith Lord calling himself Darth Vader.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader
Comments: 8
Kudos: 100
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aurae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurae/gifts).



This isn't the first cell Obi-Wan has woken up in and he has the dreadful feeling it won't be the last. The style doesn't look like a Separatist design, not the ones he's seen. It almost looks like a Republic prison cell, but it's not. Certain details pick out to his eyes, not what others would register but differences nonetheless. All cells are sad, desperate places. This one has an extra layer of hopelessness built into the very walls. He feels the echoes of the people who died here.

He has no desire to die here. He's not sure he will have the opportunity to change that. He's unsure about a number of things, including how he got here.

They'd taken a mission together. Not unusual. He often took missions with Anakin, with or without Anakin's young padawan tagging along. This mission had been without her, and Obi-Wan hadn't wanted to admit how much he enjoyed that. Once he and Anakin had gone everywhere together, just the two of them roaming the galaxy much as Obi-Wan had done with his own master. The occasional mission together without padwans or clones or pirates feel like old times, and he'd basked in this one, and in Anakin's presence.

Perhaps he should have been paying closer attention to the mission at hand. One minute he'd been inspecting an unusual rock formation, and Anakin said, "What's this thing?" And now he is here, coming fully awake in a cell.

"Hello?" he says to the closed cell door. "I'm afraid there's been some mistake."

"No mistake." The voice comes over a speaker he can't see. "You are precisely where you belong, Jedi: in a cell awaiting your execution."

"Now I know there's been a mistake," he says, mostly to himself. The voice isn't familiar to him but the Separatists have many would-be demagogues in their ranks. He hasn't had the time to familiarize himself with all of them. For all he knows, this is some village leader on a mid-Rim world he's never heard of.

His eye is drawn back to the architecture of the walls. Republic, but not.

"Could we talk face to face?" he asks the wall. When he escapes, as he plans to do as soon as he figures out what's going on and how best to get out of here, he can bring back some valuable information about their new foe.

He is met with a long silence. Perhaps his captor bored of him. Obi-Wan has given up on getting information when the cell door slides open. He is given one glimpse of the outside: white-armored soldiers guard the door. They almost look like clone troopers, but the armor and helmets are from no battalion he's ever seen. The background falls away as a nightmare enters his cell.

Obi-Wan remembers this strange aura of cold and hate. He's felt it from Dooku, but it flowed like turgid lava from the Maul creature. This black-masked monster emanates anger like some dark star with impossible radiation. Chilly terror plays in Obi-Wan's mind, and flashes of Qui-Gon's death glimmer out of the corners of his eyes. Turn, look, see the worst day of your life play out over and over. He was so much younger then.

He tilts his head, banishes the bad memories and shoos the fear away with them. There is no terrible thing this Sith, for he can be nothing else, can do to him. He can only kill him, and all creatures that have ever lived must die someday.

He allows himself a wistful moment, regretting the words he never spoke to Anakin. They will not see each other again.

The Sith stares at him through the red-tinted lenses of his mask.

"Hello there," Obi-Wan says to the man who has been sent here to kill him. "Thank you for agreeing to speak with me."

"We have nothing to say to each other."

Interesting. There's personal venom in the words. Obi-Wan would swear he's never met this man before, but of course, the war has been raging for some time, and he was well-traveled before then. Perhaps he led the mission that destroyed this man's army and never knew it. Whatever he did, it's enough to bring the Sith into his cell.

"A pity. You seem like you have something to say to me."

He can feel the glare even through the lenses. "What is your age?"

"What?" Obi-Wan freezes, nonplussed. He's expecting interrogation about military strengths and deployments, not personal questions.

"I will not ask you again. What is your age, Jedi?"

He considers not answering. What would be the point? "I will be thirty-seven next week." He's light with his words. He will be dead next week. If he's lucky, he won't take the entire week to die, but the seething hatred flowing from the Sith makes him wonder if an extended death will be part of the plan. "How old are you?"

"None of your concern." There's almost an annoyed sigh in the voice modulator. His subconscious has been listening attentively. The man is still communicating through a speaker, this one in the mask covering his mouth. He could be any species under there, even his voice hidden from identity.

"What's your name?" Obi-Wan is sure he's going to die, and he resolves to fill his remaining minutes with curiosity. "And where am I? I don't recognize this cell, or your men. What world is this?"

"A world beyond your imagining." He turns away towards the door. "You may call me Lord Vader." He exits the cell, and while his voice drops, Obi-Wan still hears him clearly when he says to the guards: "The prisoner will remain in his cell. He is not to be harmed."

Very curious.

Obi-Wan attempts to meditate, drawing strength from the Force as he can, but his thoughts turn back to Anakin. Was he captured? Is he outside this prison working on a rescue? Obi-Wan cannot feel him in the Force, meaning he isn't nearby yet. He'll have to try to extend his life long enough for Anakin to save it again, and even if Anakin gloats about this after, Obi-Wan will be too glad to survive and be back with him to care.

Hours later, he senses the dire presence of Lord Vader outside his cell, not speaking, not moving, merely waiting. There is likely a screen outside to give his captors a full view of his actions inside. He wonders if the guards have watched their prisoners cry for help, or touch themselves in the long nights, or slit their own wrists. Obi-Wan has no intention of giving them any such show.

He does however have questions of his own. "Hello there," he says to the door. "Are you back to see me?"

If a glower could carry through a durasteel door, he knows he would feel it now.

"There was someone with me, another Jedi. A human male, younger than me." More silence. "Is he in another cell? May we speak to one another?"

Vader says, "He was with you."

A moment passes, terrible and lingering. Anakin is dead. He was killed when Obi-Wan was captured. "Yes. I want to see him."

"There is nothing to see. I destroyed him long ago."

Sorrow clenches his heart. He doesn't want to believe Vader's words, but there is a certainty in him Obi-Wan cannot deny. "I see."

"I have done you a favor, Kenobi. He was weak, useless."

"He was my best friend." More, but Vader hasn't earned that. Obi-Wan hasn't even told Anakin how he feels, and now that time has passed. Rage should fill him. Instead, there is only despair. A sob pulls out of his chest.

"You dare to weep for him now?" Vader is outraged.

Obi-Wan catches himself. The future before him is dark, and he has no reason left not to antagonize his jailer. "I daresay someone out there will mourn even you when you fall. Surely someone loved you once." There. He's said the word. Too late, too little, too lost, but spoken.

The anger blasts him, shielded by the cell door and no less powerful. Anger, and something else. "Do not speak to me of your love for Anakin Skywalker."

"Why not?" He gestures at the door, at the walls. "In the end, that's all I have, all any of us have. We have love for our friends, our families, our...." He can't finish. "We are made of love, even you, Lord Vader."

The door falls open, thrown by a powerful blast of Force energy. Vader is coming in to kill him. Obi-Wan is not afraid. He will rejoin the Force, and Anakin will be waiting for him on the other side, along with a host of others. Vader clenches his upper arms, digging in with fingers that have the strength of droids. So much for not harming him.

He would not fear.

"You never loved him," Vader growls in his face. "Do not lie to me."

Obi-Wan looks at him, and with a kindness he gathers from the root of his soul, he says, "I always did. And I always will. That's no lie."

The world blinks away.

Obi-Wan is flat on his back, staring up at interesting rock formations. Anakin crouches beside him, worried. "Hey," he says, voice full of concern. "Are you all right?"

"What happened?"

"I don't know. You collapsed. How's your head?"

"Fine," Obi-Wan says, and lets Anakin help him back to his feet. His touches are kind, solicitous, caring, the opposite of the harsh grab he just escaped. He can feel the bruises forming on his upper arms even now. "I didn't go anywhere just now?"

"Nope. You fainted for about ten seconds."

"I had a very strange dream." He almost tells him, and almost tells him everything else. His subconscious has been wrestling with these feelings for too long.

"I'm glad you're okay," Anakin says, and turns back to the thing he was examining.

Obi-Wan joins him, and decides the matter can wait.


End file.
